


Another Time, Another Garden

by LadyRem



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, Romantic Fluff, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, first time saying I love you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 15:26:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19907956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRem/pseuds/LadyRem
Summary: Aziraphale realizes what he's known all along, and finally says it. A short piece about saying "I love you", set after the apocalypse in a cottage on the South Downs.





	Another Time, Another Garden

It goes like this. He fell in love like one falls asleep: slowly at first, and then all at once, without even realizing it. Of course for an angel “slowly” is a relative term. For example, some people think six months is a rather long time to realize you love someone.

Aziraphale took six thousand years, more or less.

The realization came, very appropriately, in a garden.

The hammock had been Aziraphale’s idea. He had strung it between two small fruit trees in a corner that was populated with lush roses, thick bobbing heads of hydrangeas, and a carpet of soft grass bordered by ivy. Nearby, a wisteria tree crawled up a trellis propped against the cottage wall and spread in looping tendrils across the lines that Crowley had strung up, over to the trellis against the back garden wall, dropping flowers in a curtain across the way. Aziraphale had grown to love this bit of their garden the best; it was their own private piece of heaven on earth, one that had room for them both.

So the hammock had been Aziraphale’s idea, as a nice place to relax and read in the filtered summer sun, but it had been Crowley who took real possession of it. The demon had done his best to introduce Aziraphale to the beauty of sleep, but the angel never really took to it. There was simply too much to eat and to read, too much good music to listen to, too many things to appreciate to waste time doing something as unnecessary as sleeping. Whatever his dreams may be, Aziraphale felt that books were better, and so he spent his time awake and reading.

Crowley, on the other hand, found any excuse to sleep, and it didn’t much seem to matter where. Aziraphale would find him sleeping on his bed, on the couch, on the grass outside, propped in a corner of the study on a pile of cushions and pillows, or pretty much anywhere that Crowley felt the urge and desire, regardless of comfort. But the hammock had quickly become his favorite, and (for reasons the angel hadn’t been able to properly articulate) Aziraphale found himself drawn to the corner of the garden on those days when Crowley napped in the sun.

It was one such afternoon when Aziraphale had his realization. Crowley was asleep in the hammock, while the angel sat nearby at a small table made from metal and glass. He had a book in one hand, and a cup of tea in front of him, but the book had fallen closed around his fingers and the tea had grown cold as Aziraphale sat and watched his friend. The sunlight filtered down through the trees in shifting dapples, the leaves lending it a green hue that made everything it touched seem strange, like they were underwater. The hydrangea heads, heavy in bloom, dipped gracefully as a light breeze lifted the various garden plants and tossed them gently to and fro, their rustling echoing the sound of the nearby sea. Crowley’s hair, a vibrant red in a patch of golden sun, lifted with the wind. It was longer than it had been a few years before, back when the apocalypse had seemed so certain. Aziraphale watched a stray curl fall across the demons closed eyes, and he felt a sudden, almost painful desire to brush it away. He had been staring at Crowley for nearly an hour by then, as waves of confusion, longing, and fear washed over him one after another, over and over again, until they blended together into one giant tide of emotion that Aziraphale struggled to name.

When it came to him, finally, it came all at once, like a lightning strike.

Something must have happened then, some subtle shift that set off an echo in the space around them, a change in the wind. Crowley shifted and stretched in the hammock, taking a deep breath as he woke, before opening his yellow eyes slowly. He caught sight of Aziraphale almost instantly, and leaned his head to the side, raising an eyebrow in question.

“Something wrong, angel?” Crowley asked. Aziraphale, startled by the sudden break in the silence, blinked back out of his haze. His eyes focused on the demon with a sharp intensity, his expression a mix of guilt and concern.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” he lied. “Why do you ask?”

Crowley waved a hand up and down, indicating the whole of Aziraphale.

“You’re making _a face_ ,” the demon replied. “One of those faces you make when you’re thinking too much.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aziraphale sniffed. “This is just how my face looks.”

Crowley’s eyebrow inched a little higher, and he frowned. Aziraphale felt himself start to stiffen, words of defense and deflection already queuing up in his mind, his mouth opening to issue some form of denial. But he was still staring at Crowley. The breeze had picked up again, and that little curl of hair moved with it like a leaf, catching the sun, and the urge to brush it away came back with intensity. Aziraphale’s mouth snapped shut around whatever he had planned to say. And then, almost of its own accord, it opened again.

“I love you.”

The words seemed to spill out on their own, large and awkward. Aziraphale heard them like an outsider, like someone listening at the garden gate, distant and displaced from the rush of emotions that filled him, threatened to drown him in a flood of panic. He hadn’t intended to say it, but once said, it settled into the air with the heaviness of truth. The silence that followed was terrifying.

Crowley stared at him. In that moment, Aziraphale felt the true dread of eternity. He looked away and swallowed hard, took a shaky breath, and rushed to fill the void that he felt spreading out between them before it could overwhelm him.

“I can’t explain it, you wouldn’t understand—”

“Because I’m a demon?”

The words were sharp, bitter, and Aziraphale winced.

“No, of course not. It’s just that I, well, I shouldn’t, you know, that is, I mean, _I_ know I shouldn’t—”

“Why?”

The question was spoken softly, barely more than a whisper. Aziraphale’s eyes snapped back to the demon, who was looking at him with an inscrutable expression. The angel’s mouth went dry, and he shrugged half-heartedly.

“Well, we’re supposed to be enemies—”

“Are we?”

There was an intensity in the air now, something important and unspoken. Aziraphale stared at the demon, and felt his shoulders set as he sat up straighter, lifted his chin.

“No,” he answered, with certainty. “Never.”

Most people, when exiting a hammock, do it with a lot of flailing and clumsy swinging efforts to gain the ground back under their feet before heaving themselves from it like a sack of potatoes on legs. Not Crowley. In one quick motion the demon was out of the hammock and across the garden before Aziraphale could even blink. The space between them crossed, he stood for a moment towering like a lanky shadow over the angel, who looked up almost reverently at the figure before him. Then, in another smooth motion, Crowley lowered down to one knee in front of Aziraphale, his yellow eyes looking up at the angel with a fierce expression. Very slowly, with great deliberation, the demon reached out and took Aziraphale’s free hand in both of his own. Goosebumps traveled up Aziraphale’s arm and across his body at the touch.

Crowley started at him for another moment.

“I’m not supposed to either, you know,” he said, finally. His voice was rough, full of edges Aziraphale didn’t understand.

“I’m sorry?” Aziraphale said.

“Love you,” Crowley said. “Not something demons are supposed to do, love.” He made a face. “Not very hellish.”

“It can be,” Aziraphale said softly. Crowley tightened his grip on the angel’s hand.

“I know,” he said with meaning.

His eyes were large and golden in the afternoon sun. He didn’t blink. The stray curl had wandered across his forehead again. Without thinking, Aziraphale dropped his book from his other hand. It fell into the grass with a soft thud as the angel reached out and brushed the hair away from Crowley’s face. It traced the curve of Crowley’s cheek, and down the long neck until it came to rest where neck met shoulder. He could feel the demon’s pulse thumping like a jackrabbit under his hand, and he realized with sudden clarity that Crowley – smooth, fast-talking, eternally cool Crowley—was as terrified as he was. It was like a burden had been lifted off the angel’s shoulders, and he beamed down at the demon with a grin, and laughed.

Crowley eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

“What?” he said, suddenly indignant and a little apprehensive. “What’s so funny?”

Aziraphale shook his head in amusement.

“Look at us,” he said. “Six thousand years.”

“And?”

“And,” Aziraphale said. “I’m an idiot.”

And then he leaned down and kissed the demon softly on the mouth.


End file.
